Intermediate File options for SD to Adobe Speedgrade CS6, supports AVI and QT

[xekon]

I want to try out Adobe SpeedGrade with some DVD footage. (R2 Dragonbox)

It lists supporting Windows AVI and Quicktime: http://helpx.adobe.com/speedgrade/using/file-formats.html

I have heard great things about using dnxhd as a lossless intermediate file.

so I gave it a shot:

dbz.avs:
LoadPlugin("F:\AviSynth\plugins\DGDecode.dll")
MPEG2Source("F:\dbz\001.d2v")

command:
F:\AviSynth\tools\FFmbc-0.7rc7\ffmbc -i dbz.avs -vcodec dnxhd -b 36M -mbd rd -threads 0 dbz001.mov

it however did not work because SD resolutions are not supported.

What are some recommend ways to encode the video to a lossless intermediate file (do not need audio, only video)

I was thinking dnxhd might still work just not through ffmbc but im not sure, or maybe I dont even need dnxhd to encode to a lossless quicktime file.

Thank you for any and all responses, I appreciate it :)

[kolak]

Use ProRes- just note that neither ProRes nor DNxHD is lossless. They are compressed at about 5:1, so offer very good quality, but not lossless.

[xekon]

mmm ok, Is there a way to convert from my .avs file to a lossless AVI or quicktime format?

researching ProRes now :)

I found this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_codecs#Lossless_compression.5B4.5D

it lists qtrle as a lossless codec, what are your thoughts on using that?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animation_codec

trying now:

F:\AviSynth\tools\ffmpeg32\bin\ffmpeg -i dbz001.avs -vcodec qtrle dbz001.mov

[poisondeathray]

animation codec is lossless, but lossless RGB . So it won't be lossless for a DVD source (it will be upsampled by swscale in ffmpeg to RGB)

[xekon]

yes, I was reading that, but my previous color correction process was converting to RGB as well. I would use converttorgb32() in my script before applying the VD gradations curve filter.

So I think the conversion to RGB should be acceptable. Really just testing things out. I have never used SpeedGrade before, but everywhere I read about it says its just amazing for color correction, so I really want to try it out and learn to use it.

[poisondeathray]

BTW it won't make a big difference - if you are using speedgrade, most likely you will be using RGB anyway for most of the manipulations

If your input file is .avs , avisynth frameserves uncompressed material. So ffmpeg -i input.avs -vcodec copy output.avi will be uncompressed YV12 , same colorspace as DVD source (unless you did something else in your script) . The problem is, some applications don't like certain fourcc's or chroma plane arrangements. e.g. some might accept IYUV, but not YV12 (even though the decoded material is bit for bit identical and YCbCr 4:2:0) . I can't recall if speedgrade will accept those. "v210" (uncompressed 10bit 422) is almost universally accepted in "pro" applications . So you can use -vcodec v210 if you having problems importing

[Mug Funky]

anything that goes in for colour grading will end up in RGB, so don't sweat if you need to convert.

if you have ffmpeg at your disposal, you could go 10-bit RGB dpx files...

otherwise, don't be worried about prores loss coming from a DVD - i can assure you it's invisible.

i just missed out on Iridas Speedgrade's heyday... see what adobe did to it

[xekon]

so now I have all kind of options.

straight to avi as poisondeathray showed(uncompressed YV12), qtrle, prores, 10-bit RGB dpx

the 10-bit RGP dps sounds interesting, not sure if that file format would be openable by speedgrade or not, what would the ffmpeg command line look like for that?

also just re-read poisondeathray's post, I might give this a go to:

ffmpeg -i dbz001.avs -vcodec v210 dbz001.avi (uncompressed 10bit 422)

My final encode for my NAS will be in 10bit, so I am assuming there will be a small gain by using 10bit in the intermediate stage possibly.(less losses?)

[xekon]

encoded 1763 frames with the following commands:

ffmpeg -i trunks.avs -vcodec copy trunks.avi (128fps 871mb) (could not be used in SpeedGrade, red X)

ffmpeg -i trunks.avs -vcodec v210 trunks2.avi (106fps 1.51GB) (allowed me to place on timeline, but then the Monitor shows "Error opening file")
ffmpeg -i trunks.avs -vcodec r210 trunks3.avi (90fps 2.42GB) (allowed me to place on timeline, but then the Monitor shows "Error opening file")

ffmpeg -i trunks.avs -vcodec qtrle trunks.mov (21fps 1.44GB) (fully worked, droped on timeline and then viewable in monitor, was pretty slow to convert to this, but it works)

[Mug Funky]

speedgrade was designed to work with dpx files.

these are the files that come off film scanners like the spirit or arri.

[xekon]

oh neat! still trying to figure out how to use ffmpeg to output a 10-bit RGB dpx file, would like to try it out.

upon further investigation, are dpx files image files? like one file per frame? if so I will probably just use qtrle for convenience, so I dont have so many different files.